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ANN 1998 Retrospective

by Justin Sevakis, Jan 13th 1999

Wow, I didn't think we'd make it this long.

Since last summer, ANN has worked hard to provide you with the most up-to-date, complete, unbiased news coverage in the anime industry. Now, with the start of the new year, it's as good a time as any to take a look at what happened in the past few months...

The Big Stories

Admittedly, the two biggest stories of the year happened at a time when ANN, frankly, didn't have it together quite yet. Those stories were the release of Kiki's Delivery Service and Pok»mon, both to a potentially mainstream market.

We were all quite surprised two years ago, when the Walt Disney company and Tokuma Shoten (the Japanese distributor for Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki's and Isao Takahata's company) announced a worldwide distribution deal, in which Disney would dub all of the Ghibli films (with the exception of Grave of the Fireflies, Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro and I Can Hear the Sea) and distribute them worldwide.

But most surprising was their release of a subtitled version. While the translation left a lot to be desired (like accuracy, for example), the fact that they even released one at all shows that they were paying attention to the otaku purist as a possible customer.

Pok»mon turned out to be less of a story, as it eventually revealed itself to be just another little kid anime-turned badly hacked American kids' TV show. We've seen this so many times before that it's not even that big a deal anymore. Just the same, Viz really cleaned up on the deal, distributing the video series through Pioneer and releasing the manga, which was so successful that it even had a second printing.

AnimeWorks, which really had no big-caliber titles, but was working its Kitty hentai division to get money for licensing, made a surprise announcement in November that they had appropriated the rights to Magic Knights Rayearth, the incredibly popular TV series, which had previously been made available only through fansubs.

Pioneer surprised many people with its licensing of Fushigi Yugi, while Viz distributed the manga through their new, highly acclaimed magazine Animerica Extra. Viz also announced their licensing of Video Girl Ai, which will see a release this year. Manga Entertainment had a quiet year while switching distributors and gearing up for the release of the Fist of the North Star TV series and next year's theatrical release of X the Movie and Perfect Blue. US Manga Corps jumped on the shojo bandwagon with the release of Revolutionary Girl Utena, and have already licensed the new Loduss War TV series.

ADV Films finally announced its first DVD release with the Tekken OAV (which it felt compelled to call a "motion picture"), and quickly followed that up with the planned release of Queen Millenia OAV on DVD as well. The company is currently working on the release of other titles, including the much sought-after Neon Genesis Evangelion. Meanwhile, orphaned Streamline Pictures titles have found a new home with MGM after they bought the property owned by Orion after it went belly-up.

Urban Vision surprised fans with its announcement of their first theatrical release, the new remake of the Vampire Hunter D movie. The film, which is directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Ninja Scroll), is expected to hit theaters this year, and UV has put up RealVideo samples on their web site.

Finally, The Right Stuf finished off it's popular Irresponsible Captain Tylor TV series (they plan to release the OAV's next year)... and followed it up with the nastiest thing ever animated, Cool Devices! Now there's a nice mix!

Problems Abroad

In the "what were they thinking?!" department, this fall Shogakuken launched their new online "Webmanga," in which they took a twenty year old Urusei Yatsura manga page and added a 3-D Lum and expected flocks of people to come running to play zap-the-manga-panel.

Fans of legendary director Akira Kurosawa were saddened at his passing this fall. Maker of such well-known films as "Ran" and one of the only Japanese talents to have won an Academy Award was 88 years old and died of natural causes.

There was SOME good news. In a collaboration with American and Japanese animators, the Final Fantasy rendered movie is currently in production, and will be released by Sony in the United States before its Japanese run. The movie will have nothing to do with any Final Fantasy game.

Fan Chaos

Just as ANN was opening we received word of some severe problems at AnimeExpo and the hotel's security team. Threats that seemed to stem from Christian extremist points of view were aimed at everyone from vendors of hentai titles to fans in costume. No word on whether any lawsuits were filed or not, but AX will be at the same hotel next year.
The fandom community was hit hard by the brutal attack of Nausicaa.net by Russian hackers. The hackers hit the entire server, deleting... well... everything. While the cleanup continues even now, the site is ALMOST back to normal.

The Mixx Story

...But the story that really put us on the map was the one covering the issues with Mixx Entertainment and the fan backlash to their switching of Sailor Moon to new girly magazine Smile (and a host of other nasty accusations). The backlash was severe enough that they started censoring their own message board before taking it down altogether.

They're still showing 35mm prints of Ghibli classics like Princess Mononoke in some revival theaters - but what's so special about 35mm? Justin has some thoughts.― David asked: Hi! I've noticed that several art house theaters in the NY metro area have started showing 35mm version of Ghibli classics like Mononoke and Nausicaa. is there any real benefit to seeing these over the "regular versions" mor...

From She and Her Cat to Your Name., Anne Lauenroth ranks all of Makoto Shinkai's projects from top to bottom. What are your favorite creations by this distinctive director?― Why do we wake up crying from a dream we've already begun to forget? Why does the feeling of loss linger after the memory of that dream has faded to a vague feeling of something that should be there but isn't? How can we long f...

Corpse Party's conclusion diverges more from the game than ever before, but disappoints as a horror story. Rebecca Silverman explains what went wrong.― These volumes, according to creators Toshimi Shinomiya and Makoto Kedouin, are where the manga adaptation of Corpse Party: Blood Covered really diverges from its game original. By this point the cast is most cut back down to its first game characters...

Recovery of an MMO Junkie has been a wild ride, but it's finally time for Moriko and Sakurai to start a new chapter together. We speculate on the next horizon for this nerdy couple.― Recovery of an MMO Junkie has been a wild ride, but it's finally time for Moriko and Sakurai to start a new chapter together. This week in anime, Michelle and Steve speculate what lies on the horizon for this nerdy coup...

Magical girls get a military makeover in this dark take on the genre. Rebecca Silverman has the details.― What do you think has been lacking from dark magical girl reboots? If you said “big ass guns and crippling PTSD,” then Magical Girl Special Ops Asuka might be the series for you! While the concept of the dark magical girl story is hardly new – those who remember the final moments of the last Nur...

The C3 Anime Festival Asia Singapore holds the crown as the biggest anime festival in Asia outside of Japan. The con celebrated its 10th anniversary this year, and was attended by over 96,000 people. This year's events featured no major changes from the previous ones, but why fix what isn't broken? Notably, 2017's guest lineup included the main staff of Violet Evergarden, which was part of the con...

We frequently hear about how in Western animation, performances are often taped before animation really starts - but the opposite is apparently true in Japan. Justin gets into it.― James asked: Some time ago, you stated that one of the major differences between western animation and Japanese animation is that, in western animation, all dialogue is recorded first, and then the animation is done to m...

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One of the most beloved shojo anime of all time comes to Blu-ray in this "sweet sixteen" special edition set! Rebecca Silverman looks back on how this heartwarming classic has held up sixteen years later.― Back when it was first released, Fruits Basket, based on the manga of the same name by Natsuki Takaya, was a sensation. Combining elements of fantasy, slice-of-life, and reverse harem romance come...

Mike devours a few episodes of the genre-smashing French action cartoon Lastman and wonders - is this anime?― Earlier this year I was at the Crunchyroll Expo, where I hosted a bunch of discussion panels and presented a couple of my own. The homogenous look and omnipresent Crunchyroll branding took some getting used to, but it was ultimately an energetic and well-run show, a deft mix of the stuff I l...

My Monster Secret’s sixth volume maintains its madcap romcom appeal in spite of some predictably glacial pacing. Nick Creamer has the details.― At last, it's time for action. As My Monster Secret's sixth volume opens, our hero Asahi reiterates his determination to actually confess to his vampiric classmate Shiragami. Having been spurred into action by the courage of his childhood friend Mikan, he's ...